Today, I am mostly talking about my experience with quilting this quilt on a long arm machine, if you want a more in depth tutorial on quilting and tips go here!

I have a love/hate relationship with the actual quilting part of the whole quilt making process. I love it when everything is going well and my design is looking fantastic. I hate it when, I am breaking threads, my stitches are less than stellar, and my back and shoulders are hurting!

I have found that, no matter how much you practice and prepare, you are going to encounter some issues and difficulties when quilting your quilt. But that doesn't mean you can't enjoy the process, and make the best out of it! After all, this is supposed to be fun! :)

I was lucky enough to be able to quilt this myself on a long arm machine. I have done this once before, and it was an eye-opening experience. I really thought that quilting on a long-arm would come more natural to me and would be a lot easier than quilting on a domestic machine.

I had these grand plans of doing intricate designs in the diamonds, and then other designs in the pinwheels and it was going to be a masterful work of quilting!

Well, my hopes and dreams were shattered, when I realized I could barely sew a straight line! And that is no exaggeration!! I was way out of my element with long arm quilting, and figured out really quickly that I wasn't going to be the next Angela Walters overnight! :)

I seriously have a new found appreciation for the long arm quilters out there! I decided to do what I know how to do best when it comes to free motion quilting and that is: loopy loops! They are one of my favorite designs to do on my domestic machine, and have found the design comes really natural to me. So I stuck with what I knew, and went with it.

I am happy with the overall appearance of the quilting, but I'm telling you--if I had about 20 hours alone with that long arm machine I would have went for the masterpiece I had in my head! :)

I would love to practice more on a long-arm machine, because it was so nice to be able to quilt this baby in less than an hour! Plus, there were no thread issues, or back and shoulder pain! Which was a big plus! So overall, I am happy with how my quilting turned out, and I am definitely going to try quilting on a long-arm again!